


The Widowers's Braid

by creepy_crawly, Mousieta



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Angst, Braids, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Post-Game(s), reference to canon character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-08
Updated: 2019-09-08
Packaged: 2020-11-02 00:24:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20559131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/creepy_crawly/pseuds/creepy_crawly, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mousieta/pseuds/Mousieta
Summary: Nyx had been Ignis's first but they never actually spoke of what they were to one another, never put a name to what was between them, and then there was no chance to do so.Left behind, Ignis lives with his grief and finds healing in an old custom.





	The Widowers's Braid

**Author's Note:**

> Set post game, this fic takes as given that Nyx and Ignis were in a relationship before it and Kingsglaive took place. Spoilers for both.

Their first time had been awkward, Ignis still shedding the ghost of the boy, Nyx a hardened warrior, the remnants of innocence long gone if he’d ever had them. He hadn't known - because Ignis hadn't told him - that it was more than just _ their _first time. It was his. 

Perhaps Nyx would have been gentler, he had it in him to be kind, considerate. But youthful lust and eagerness had pushed Ignis past wanting gentle, he wanted passion and roughness and Nyx had given all that and more. 

Nyx had grown up in the midst of a war, and that was the way he loved - fiercely, fully, with fire and fervor and Ignis craved it even as he burned. Like so much else from that time, what happened between them just happened. It was never spoken of, voice never given to the emotions they revealed through their actions. 

It had just been casual, Ignis told himself when he returned to Insomnia, scarred in body and heart. Just casual one offs, guys helping each other out, he reasoned as he heard the news, saw the lists of casualties. 

Casual, empty, nothing... words that were a shield against loss, but words were as flimsy as the shaky breath that spoke them, broken and scattered by the wind. 

Their long nights in the field hadn’t been casual. Evenings of shared fire and his fresh cooked food, Nyx's kill of course. Nights filled with conversation before moving on to other things. 

The days where he pushed himself so hard in training that tears of fatigue seemed to hover just on the edge only to be chased away by Nyx's strong hands weren't casual. 

Their laughter as they rode through the streets of Insomnia on the back of a truck, shouting at Gladio's recklessness.

The midnight moments where one of them woke in darkness to be held by the other as they shook from the nightmares. 

None of it had been casual and now it was gone. 

His lover, and his King. Both lost. 

Nyx's solemn face breaking out into a laugh of pure joy at Ignis's driest of jokes. Noct's sleepy bedhead and sheepish smile as he dug in to breakfast - What was the point of having sight, he mused, when there was nothing worth seeing anymore. Cold comfort but it didn’t matter anyway. What did feelings of loss, the agony of loneliness matter when he had the weight of a Kingdom to carry?

In the midst of bearing that weight, going through his closets as he searched for half-remembered documents a box tumbled out from a high shelf. Hands shaking, he lifted the case that held the tools that Nyx used for maintaining his braids--threads, beads, wire, blunt needles for getting the weave right, tiny clear elastics. He’d forgotten it’d been left there.

He had thought there were no more tears to cry but there were as he wrapped himself around the case, broken and sobbing as he curls around the memories and the pain. 

He cradled the small box, until the wave of tears ebbed, slowed to only one or two running down his face. His grief was deep, long, and tired, wearing him down as he shoved it away. There was no time for old grief. 

Later he made a round through the newly rebuilt quarters of Insomnia and found the new Galahdian sector. There was an old woman seated at the edge of the square who called out to him and offered him a quiet greeting. For days after the sound of her voice haunted him until, almost without volition, he found himself back before her, kneeling and holding out the kit. Nyx’s kit. 

"Grandmother?" he asked, quiet, unable to say more. 

She laid an old, gnarled hand, skin paper-thin, over his. "Oh, child-by-my-child," she said, understanding in her deep eyes. "Come. Sit. You've hair enough to honor him proper, you do." 

He startled in surprise. He hadn’t realized that talk of Nyx, of them, had spread...but he sat. 

She sat behind him, humming quietly, fingers working the familiar twists and tugs of a widower's braid, using the tiny combs and thread and wax from the small box Ignis was still cradling. She didn’t ignore them, but she said nothing about the silent tears pouring down his face.

They were in a crowded street, people passing by in a steady stream but not a one of them said anything. The Galahdians seemed to understand, to respect the holiness of the moment, the moment that a widower accepts their loss, the alchemy of the storm of abandonment calming into the soft rain of grief to be carried forward. 

Her hands finished the braid, and she waxed the thread into an all-too-familiar knot. The old woman patted Ignis's shoulder. "I know it's not the way of yours," she said, "and it's all up to your comfort, but... Those who wear the knots are always welcome to join us when we gather. We will help you weave the knots, 'til you can carry the weight yourself."

Ignis could do the work himself, he learned over time and the memories of watching Nyx do it were ever present, but still he'd wind his way to the Galahdian quarter to sit at the grandmother’s feet, to be soothed by her ancient hands, to wrap himself in the speech of the Galahdian’s passing by, to catch the ghosts of _ his _ voice in theirs.

Years passed, slipping by as the world descended into darkness then reemerged into the light and still, he would go down to the Galahdian quarter. Eventually the old woman, Flora, passed and he joined her family as they performed their rituals of farewell. Her daughter, Tiria, gave him a reassuring pat as he hugged his goodby and she took over the task her mother had born. 

Sometimes an ambassador or foreign trade magnate would startle at seeing Insomnia's Regent with his hair styled so peculiarly but courtiers would shush and move them aside. As time slipped by, the tears were replaced by sadness and one day he found himself choking back laughter as he told the tale of Nyx's battle with a Dualhorn that left him to his ass in Anak dung. 

Surrounding the memory was joy and a deep measure of love. There was pain, yes, but it was dull, a pale shade of what it once was. 

“I loved him, you know,” he said. It was the first time he’d ever said the words aloud but they were the truth. 

Tiria gave a pat to his head indicating she was done. “And he loved you,” she said, “it is obvious in every story you tell.” Another truth and it healed him.

**Author's Note:**

> I owe my deepest apologies to i_feel_electric for having this idea and the subsequent pain. Thankfully creepy_crawly was there to take my idea and run with it so we could suffer together.


End file.
